A new review of The Dishonored Dead appeared over the weekend, this one courtesy of Buy Zombie. In the lengthy review, the reviewer says the book is "a definite page turner with lots of action, tension and suspense" and that "the characters are well developed, the action is tight and the storyline is smooth." But the reviewer does pick up on one interesting point:
The entire storyline could be exchanged to depict cops versus robbers, CIA versus terrorists, US Army versus Taliban, etc. The only reason this story is listed as a zombie novel is that the main protagonists consist of decaying zombies who must apply lotion to their skin to slow down the rotting process and their hunt for living humans. As stated, those primary groups could be exchanged for any two groups of people and the story would still be an action packed, suspenseful, political thriller.
And it's true -- in many ways the novel is a political thriller that just happens to feature the decaying dead. I'll admit that while I've always known the novel was somewhat rife with social commentary, the idea that it was also a political thriller never crossed my mind. Maybe because I'm not a big fan of political thrillers and never intended on writing one. And I guess that also begs the question of just what makes a thriller a political thriller. Like the Jack Reacher novels -- many deal with political issues, but are they political thrillers in the same way a Tom Clancy novel is a political thriller? Could we go so far as to call The Dishonored Dead an allegory?
Then again, in the end, does it really even matter?
You can read the rest of the Buy Zombie review here.
When asked how important college creative-writing courses were to his success, Dean Koontz answered:
